Paris and New York are — “I feel like a kid in a candy store,” exclaimed Christina, a resident of New York’s Upper East Side, as she stood in line outside Skylight at Essex Crossing on a Saturday morning.
It was Christina’s first time attending Sephoria, the Sephora-hosted beauty festival that made its debut in Los Angeles in 2018 and returned to the city in person last weekend after two years of being held digitally.
The two Friday sessions of Sephoria, which was originally planned as a two-day festival, were canceled when severe rains led to flooding in several parts of the city and prompted Governor Kathy Hochul to issue an emergency proclamation.
Sephora provided full refunds to anyone who purchased tickets on Friday and offered to mail them the gift bags that went with their ticket tier. While some potential participants vented their disappointment in the retailer’s Instagram comments section, expectant Saturday ticket holders awaited information on their sessions. The second Sephoria Day would go as scheduled the following morning.
Christina continued, “Natasha Denona and Patrick Ta have my highest level of excitement. She wasn’t the only one, though, as a young woman on crutches jammed her face against the outside of the venue’s floor to ceiling windows a short distance away. She exclaimed, pointing to her pal and saying, “I see Patrick Ta.”
Despite a gloomy start, Sephoria attracted more than 4,200 visitors throughout its three-hour morning and afternoon sessions on Saturday. Gold Key tickets, which cost $369, included one-hour early session admittance, access to a VIP lounge, and a larger goodie bag than Silver Key tickets, which cost $119.
At the festival, more than 50 sponsors took part, creating booths and activations with giveaways, contests, picture ops, and more. According to Jessica Stacey, senior vice president of external communications, event and experiential marketing at Sephora, “our goal for 2023 — our fifth year of Sephoria — was to deliver our largest and most ambitious endeavor to date.”
The shop hired the New York-based artist Jade Purple Brown to create the “House of Beauty” theme for the occasion. The venue has more than eight rooms spread across two floors, as well as a “theater” where seminars by Ta, Denona, Lauren Ireland from Summer Fridays, and other speakers were scheduled for the day.
A visitor standing at the entrance of the Sol de Janeiro booth inquired, “Do you want Bum Bum or Beija?” while holding a yellow and a pink coin-shaped token in each hand. She handed out two additional tokens on the way out, you know, for the memories, and one token to be placed into the machine dispensing mini-sized body lotions of one’s choosing. “It’s like a gum ball machine,” she said.
Other first-floor booths included Laneige, Chantecaille, SkinFix, Tatcha, and 2018 Sephoria alum Dr. Dennis Gross. Word had gotten out that Tatcha was giving out full-size samples and that a queue of more than 30 people was waiting to get one.
“I am shocked at the level of questions people are asking,” said Gross, who was giving four-minute skin consultations at the booth for his name-brand company. The level of [consumer] intelligence has unquestionably increased since the Sephoria of 2018: “That is the difference between this Sephoria and the Sephoria of 2018.”
On closer inspection, it was discovered that the sporadic cheering was coming from the Danessa Myricks Beauty stand, where visitors could spin a wheel to win a variety of prizes, including a year-long spot on the company’s PR list.
This is as exciting for me as it is for them, and I’ve been crying most of the day, said Myricks. “Seeing how people are experiencing them and how they make people feel is completely different from creating things in your own head or office,” the author says.
Guests at NARS Cosmetics conversed with Chelsea, the company’s virtual ambassador, about her favorite colors from the PowerMatte lip line. Chelsea seemed unconcerned by the rain, much like the attendees who were actually there. She said, “I got away from that because I’m in the metaverse.
The goal at Rare Beauty was to create the atmosphere of getting ready with your girlfriends. When handing out Discovery Eyeshadow Palettes to onlookers, the brand’s global beauty artist, Cynthia Di Meo, stated, “We want that touch-and-play moment. It’s about that excitement to play with makeup.” A close visitor signaled to her buddy to take a picture by lifting a display tube of Rare Beauty lip oil, which was, of course, as tall as she was, as if on cue.
In Southern California for Sephoria, Kyra and Fiona, both 24 years old, stated their favorite aspect was simply “seeing so many beautiful people in one place.”
Another participant, Erika, whose favorite part of the day was Denona’s masterclass, said, “I’m a very busy mom, but coming here, it’s worth it.” “I just adore her, and I adore how she rose to fame in her later years.”
Another visitor, Shereen, who was double-fisting goodie-filled tote bags from Milk Makeup and Moroccan Oil, commented, “They did a good job telling brands to come up with different ideas.” Shereen was doing the same as her buddy Dashel.
It exceeded my expectations for sure, and it’s clear that everyone working here enjoys their job, according to Dashel, who had never heard of K18 before Sephoria but is now “a big fan” after learning about the company’s reparative technology at its booth.
A Drunk Elephant sales and education executive named Fatima Khweiss spent the day creating “skin care cocktails,” or regimens, for attendees depending on their skin objectives. “This is definitely bigger than Sephoria was in 2018,” she declared. There is a strong relationship forming among guests as a result of the outbreak; it appears that they are all genuinely happy to be there and socializing with one another.
Instead of using typical blotters, visitors to the LoveShack Fancy booth could sample the brand’s debut fragrance collection as Chris Collins, the creator of the fragrance, ran a station that was designed to look like a speakeasy. Collins remarked that Sephoria attendees seemed to particularly enjoy his Lost in Paradise smell, describing it as “like a bar, but for fragrance.”
More than 90,000 virtual users attended the event’s online, gamified experience, where they could create their avatars and play games to earn Beauty Insider points. This was Sephoria’s first hybrid iteration.
Sephoria made its debut in France on Friday morning when it opened its doors at 150 Rue de Rivoli in Paris’ first arrondissement. The three-floor spectacle, which is just a short walk from the Louvre and the Samaritaine department store, both owned by parent firm LVMH Mot Hennessy Louis Vuitton, was initially open to journalists and influencers before being available to “gold” clientele on Friday afternoon.
On Saturday, the general public is welcome to visit, although registration is required.
At noon on Friday, hordes of people were buzzing around the stands for 33 brands in the vibrant area. Each visitor had a canvas bag that they could fill with treats that had been provided to them at the entrance.
Morrocanoil, Kérastase, Olaplex, Aveda, Color Wow, and the Sephora Collection are all present on the ground level along with hair stations.
A skin care and fragrance-focused area is located one flight of stairs down, and it is ornamented with a colorful “Sephoria” sign. Alongside scent brands Jo Malone, Tom Ford, and Kayali, this contains names like Byoma, Ole Henriksen, Laneige, Drunk Elephant, The Inkey List, Sol de Janeiro, and Supergoop.
There are flash facials available from Seasonly. Additionally, a half-hour workshop will be conducted in an auditorium on Friday by Glow Recipe and Dr. Dennis Gross.
Color cosmetics companies including Makeup By Mario, Rabanne, Huda Beauty, Ilia, and Charlotte Tilbury are highlighted on the plus-one floor. There are stations for full-face makeup, brows, and nails.
There are plenty of opportunities for photos and videos; at the Sephora-branded booth, the new mascara Love the Lift has a XXXL-sized tube and a mobile camera for selfies. For the snap-happy, there are also photo terminals and picture-call locations available. Lounge lizards have a spot to unwind, and snackers can fill their bellies.
